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PREFACE

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was created to “examine the causes of the
current financial and economic crisis in the United States.” In this report, the Com-
mission presents to the President, the Congress, and the American people the results
of its examination and its conclusions as to the causes of the crisis.
More than two years after the worst of the financial crisis, our economy, as well as
communities and families across the country, continues to experience the after-
shocks. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes, and the economy
is still struggling to rebound. This report is intended to provide a historical account-
ing of what brought our financial system and economy to a precipice and to help pol-
icy makers and the public better understand how this calamity came to be.
The Commission was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery
Act (Public Law -) passed by Congress and signed by the President in May
. This independent, -member panel was composed of private citizens with ex-
perience in areas such as housing, economics, finance, market regulation, banking,
and consumer protection. Six members of the Commission were appointed by the
Democratic leadership of Congress and four members by the Republican leadership.
The Commission’s statutory instructions set out  specific topics for inquiry and
called for the examination of the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or
would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government. This report
fulfills these mandates. In addition, the Commission was instructed to refer to the at-
torney general of the United States and any appropriate state attorney general any
person that the Commission found may have violated the laws of the United States in
relation to the crisis. Where the Commission found such potential violations, it re-
ferred those matters to the appropriate authorities. The Commission used the au-
thority it was given to issue subpoenas to compel testimony and the production of
documents, but in the vast majority of instances, companies and individuals volun-
tarily cooperated with this inquiry.
In the course of its research and investigation, the Commission reviewed millions
of pages of documents, interviewed more than  witnesses, and held  days of
public hearings in New York, Washington, D.C., and communities across the country

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